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Possibility of a record book of time?

Hello, I am writing this story which involves time-travel and I was wondering if there could be a book wherein all the events from the beginning of humankind are stored. What are your opinions on this fact and do you think that it would be possible to alter history itself by altering this book?

This is quite an interesting concept. First of all, would the book have all events recorded that are yet to happen, or just the events that have already happened? If the former, is it possible that there is no free will, and we're all just puppets in some mad mans game called "Life."?

As for the question of whether writing in it would alter history, maybe it would just alter peoples memories of history? So it still didnt happen, but people remember it as happening?
Just my 2 cents. Good luck with your fic.

Hmm... Like major events, or every single event in every single human's life? Cause that kind of book would be a bit bigger than the planet Earth... maybe even our universe. I don't think you could pull it off by just having one, but hundreds of thousands. Imagine the Prophecy room in the Department of Mysteries, but with books. That I'd believe, and even be extremely intrigued by.

Or maybe just one, magical book. Touch it, think of a single person, and bam, their life history.

Sorry... I like this idea. As to altering history, I don't think that would be possible without actually going back and changing it by real human action... I mean, a book is only just a book, whether or not it has the records of all human kind or not. What Horsebella219 said is however a possibility... The person in question might remember things differently, but the history wouldn't really be altered or changed.

I'd love to offer more help if you have any more questions. I know this doesn't sound too supportive, but I do like the idea.

I agree with everyone here. Making a book that could change history just by writing in it could cause a lot of problems in your writing, and the thing with time travel is that it only makes sense if you go in a complete loop (the time travel only makes the traveler aware of the changes to the world, they were already there when they went back in time - if that makes sense). So I think the memory thing is the better option. But the another problem is brought up: if it's only memory affected, you wouldn't be able to *see* the actual differences in the world, you would remember them as different, but you wouldn't physically be able to see it.

Horsebella219, the story I am planning to write does not seem to have a book in which the future events would be stored. It's just what's already happened that is stored. I personally believe that it is us who make or break our future, and there's nothing which has been written down that could do so. *stops rant*
What I am trying to explore is that whether such an idea is plausible at all....that is, if changing the writing in a book could alter memories, the book would have to be connected to almost every birth and death occurring...which itself would require magic beyond what we already know.

Arianna, I only want it to have major events in wizarding history, that is, events that affect the wizarding world as a whole, not just any single person. I agree with you that if the book could store every single event in history, it would be larger than the known limits of the universe itself.

Thank you for all your help, and please keep giving your opinions. My vague idea is becoming more clearer and well-defined, thanks to all of your opinions.

My first thought is my original thought; whether it's the major happenings or not, you couldn't alter history by altering a book.

My second thought is that if there's a book that writes history all by itself, why couldn't it also be changed by what's being written? It just seems less plausible, and it would take a crap load of work to pull it off.

Remember, by changing one event, you change millions. If your character changes something as little as the color of another person's shirt that they were wearing, you could prevent the conception of a child.

Originally Anna wears a yellow shirt.

She goes to the market, and Susan sees the yellow shirt, and she thinks it's the perfect color for her spare bedroom.

Susan clears out her bank account for all the painting supplies. Her and her husband have been fighting lately, and this new project brings them closer together.

Two months later, Susan and Bart still haven't figured out what to do with this spare bedroom. They do however find the most adorable wallpaper for the trim and again, they get quality time together whilst working on the spare bedroom.

Susan and Bart go out on a date for the first time in a year, just to have alone time.

Susan finally realizes what that spare bedroom could be for, and her and Bart have more fun on the night of their date than they did ten years ago when they got married. (How to say this without vulgarity... they did it )

Now, Smitty wants to change the color of Anna's shirt to purple.

Anna goes to the market.

Susan sees Anna's shirt and quickly grabs the last gallon of milk before Anna can get it.

Now, that's a really long babbling story just to get my point across. If you change something that is major in one life, you are changing dozens of little things in other lives, that eventually add up to major things. That's not necessarily a negative, but just make sure that you don't get yourself confused. As difficult as your idea already is, you don't need to go getting your times mixed up and completely throwing a reader off.

The positive about all that is you can change the little things, complete with for-shadowing and throw in dozens of sub-plots that really keep the readers going.

Beesh, I'm getting caught up. I hope this helped in the least bit, and didn't just bore your brains out while you were hoping to get to some real advice